<p>What are some of the programs, undergrad majors that CAS is really in the top of that field?</p>
<p>I mean sort of like what major in CAS is like Wharton is to undergrad business? Or some subject in which CAS is outstanding in that field?</p>
<p>econ, math, physics, ppe</p>
<p>urban studies, most languages</p>
<p>Anything related to medicine (bio, chem, psych, bbb, ...) because of the health system proximity.</p>
<p>Penn is definitely not near the top in math. It's a good program, yes, but well behind many schools. It's a top 20-25 program, not top 5-10.</p>
<p>Thanks all.</p>
<p>sometime back i saw a thread about IR being great at Penn. Assume that is International Relations, but when i saw the Fiske guide for colleges, Penn did not show up under the list of institutions that was top in this area. In fact, Penn did not show up in any area but Business for undergrad, and the book has almost 15-20 listings under each subject. </p>
<p>They did mention that BBB is a creme de la creme program in the narrative on Penn, but is it really such a unique program? I have seen similar ones at other universities, what makes BBB at Penn the premier program in this area? </p>
<p>Thanks again</p>
<p>While not specifically rankings of undergrad programs, the National Research Council rankings of graduate programs are a good proxy for the academic reputations of schools in different fields. Although a bit dated (from the 1990s, and scheduled to be updated this fall), the NRC rankings are the most highly regarded of their kind. Penn was highly ranked in the following liberal arts fields:</p>
<p>TOP 10
Art History
English
French
Linguistics
Music
Religion
Spanish
Neurosciences
Anthropology
Economics
Psychology</p>
<p>TOP 20
Classics
Comparative Literature
German
Biochemistry/Molecular Biology
Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior
Molecular and General Genetics
Physics
History
Sociology</p>
<p>In somewhat related fields, Penn was also ranked in the top 10 in Pharmacology, Physiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science, and in the top 20 in Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>The complete rankings can be found here:</p>
<p>Let's not forget Annenberg is #1 in the world for Communications.</p>
<p>In a sense, there could not possibly be any CAS major that was the equivalent of Wharton, because Wharton really stands alone as the premiere elite undergraduate business program -- largely because most of its potential competitors don't have undergraduate business programs at all. No matter how strong Penn is in any traditional arts-and-sciences field, it is still pretty much competing against EVERYONE in that field. It will rarely be #1, and even if it is the difference between #1 and #2, or even #1 and #5, will be a lot less than the difference between Wharton and Cornell's Ag School, or Kellog at Northwestern. That's certainly true in the hard sciences, where Penn is generally very strong, but not remotely unique, or English, economics, etc.</p>
<p>That said, here's a very nonexclusive, and not necessarily up-to-date, set of departments where Penn has historically been at or near the top of the heap:</p>
<p>History and sociology of medicine
Folklore -- not so sure right now, but for a couple of generations Penn was really dominant
Sociology
Urban studies
Egyptology
Landscape architecture</p>
<p>How is Penn computing?</p>
<p>^ US News recently ranked Penn's computer science graduate program at #20 (tied with Brown, Duke, Rice, and Yale, among others). The NRC ranking in the 1990s put it at #24. So, one of the top 20-30 programs in the country.</p>
<p>They had some article in the DP about some ranking system that put BE and CBE in the top 5 or 10 and CSE and ESE in the top 10-20 engineering departments.</p>
<p>Penn's computer science does have some strong points. They have the innovative Digital Media Design program. Two of my friends did that and they are off to jobs at Apple and Pixar.</p>
<p>Additionally, Penn's DARPA self-driving car (named Little Ben) did very well in the last DARPA challenge. It was one of the few cars to actually finish the course without screwing up.</p>
<p>And yes, Penn's IR program is marvelous for undergrads. It usually stays under the radar because it doesn't have an IR grad school to go with it like Georgetown, Tufts, Columbia, Stanford etc do.</p>
<p>IR is an amalgamation of history, economics, political science, regional studies, and other odds and ends. Fortunately, Penn does a marvelous job in all of these respects (while Penn's PSCI overall is not on a level of preeminence--the competition for that is simply too intense--the IR portion of it is particularly strong)</p>
<p>But the undergrads themselves are an extraordinarily talented bunch (with the Fulbright, Truman, and even Rhodes scholars to show for it) and recruiters and grad schools know it. There are pre-requisites and GPA cutoffs and an interview required simply to get into the IR major, and it is one of the few majors at Penn that require a senior thesis even for non-honors candidates.</p>
<p>Among my Penn IR major friends, here are some places we are going next year as Penn IR alums:</p>
<p>-Harvard Law
-Fulbright
-Marshall
-Stanford Law
-banking with the big guys
-US-china business council
-SK Corp (korean chaebol)
-Mahindra Group (that's me! off to India I go!)
-management consulting
-healthcare consulting</p>
<p>And lots lots more.</p>
<p>Whats the best school in terms of Business, and what about Econ?
What is the main difference?</p>
<p>Penn has one of the best linguistics programs in the country.</p>